Discuss - Ep #0295

[Watching Project]

Robservations - #295

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Re: Discuss - Ep #0295

NOW IN LIVING(?) COLOR!!
(Well, most of the time.)

[Lydia]

The color is very startling to me.  After all, we've been watching Dark Shadows in black and white for nearly 15 months now.

Just a few days ago we had Julia talking to Woodard about the traumatic effect upon Maggie of coming face to face with the supernatural, and the delicate task of helping her to live with it.  Today Maggie, after an initial trauma of a couple of months, seems to be dealing just fine with the revelation of the supernatural.  Whatever criticisms can made of Julia with respect to her treatment of Maggie, she did do an effective job, apparently, of bringing Maggie back from the ghastly state Maggie was in when she was first found after her escape from the Old House.  Or is it that the recovery would have happened anyway, with or without Julia's assistance?

I still want to know what Julia's plan was with regard to Maggie.  Was she planning to cure Barnabas, and introduce Maggie to him in the daylight, and treat Maggie's story as a delusion?  And then, of course, she would have to tell Woodard that her talk of the supernatural was merely talk.  But if she did that, then she could never publish her information about Barnabas.  Oh, well, maybe she hadn't thought that far.  When you're a daredevil like Julia, dealing with something as medically exciting as a vampire, you don't sweat the details.  You just forge ahead, hypodermic needle in hand.

[DarkLady]

The first time I saw these eps. (in syndication in the 1980s), I remember how nice it was when they started being in color. It's fun to see all those clothes!

I've always thought that Julia was planning to keep Maggie at Wyndcliff until long after she cured Barnabas, so that Barnabas's cure (or whatever) and Maggie's return would seem not to be at all connected. She probably planned to bring Maggie along gradually, and she has made some progress, considering Maggie's extreme, regressed state when she arrived. But Sarah has sped up Julia's plans. Julia might not even have planned to hypnotize Maggie, which seems like a drastic measure. Of course Barnabas is ready to kill both of them, but there is no end to Julia's resourcefulness.

But Maggie is starting to remember, especially a man with "burning eyes" who wants her to die.

That Indian medallion with the mirrors brought back a lot of memories--there was a time when they were everywhere! 

[IluvBarnabas]

Along with Burke, I too wondered where Sam was...perhaps he was doing another commission elsewhere?

Burke rips into Dr. Woodard and scolds Sam and Joe for the whole Maggie's dead hoax. I can't stand his judgmental attitude in here. It never occured to him that they did it to protect her, to save her LIFE?! It shouldn't have been necessary for Dr. Woodard to point out to Burke the dangers of having word get out that Maggie escaped successfully at the time before they caught her kidnapper.

Barnabas threatens to kill Julia for Maggie's escape...very foolish move, because Julia and her medallion are his safety net, whether he likes it or not. The telephone call saved her life, and also Barnabas' if he could only see it. Julia arrives at Dr. Woodard's office just in time to erase Maggie's memory and stop her from naming Barnabas.

Even before the hypnosis, we see Maggie slowly coming back to normal and away from the childlike state she was in...she doesn't quite know who Vicki is, but she does recognize her.

Good episode.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Similarly to the quality of the kinescopes in syndication versus them on DVD, it's often incredible how much better the color is in these early color eps on DVD versus how they looked in syndication:

Syndication

DVD

The color is just so washed out in syndication. 

[DarkLady]

Wow, MB, that is awesome! Does that mean that somebody is remastering the videos for the DVD edition?

[alwaysdavid]

We also get the wavy and much bigger Dark Shadows in the intro.  It's much more dramatic.  Nobody seems to question that Maggie was talking about the man and now has forgotten while alone with Julia.  Has Julia been making her forget all along, because if she hadn't Maggie could talk to staff and clients at the home.

[Roland]

Seeing the world of DS in color for the first time has much of the same impact as Dorothy's stepping into a Technicolor Oz.

I understand everyone expecting Maggie to remember them, but Burke? After all, he does look a whole lot different than the last time she saw him!